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Showing posts from March, 2008

Spring Break was Exhausting!

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I'm so excited that school starts back up again tomorrow. Tee hee hee!

I Love Lucy style birthday

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The yin and yang were in full swing. I know I expect to have good times mixed with bad, but couldn't we forego the bad for just one day? I'll start by telling you the bad part, as that is always the most amusing. In retrospect, the dinner reminded me of a classic I Love Lucy. You know how that show goes? The embarrassment grows and grows until there is a final, ultimate embarrassment that makes you want to crawl under a table? After spending the day with the kids at the science center, DH took us all out to Todai's, which is an all-you-can-eat Japanese Buffet. So there we were chowing down when DS-age 4 started complaining of a stomach ache. Hmmmm. How many times had the waitress refilled his pink lemonade? I hoped that the stomach ache would go away without incident. He continued to complain, in between sprinting back and forth and kicking up a mild ruckus with his brothers, attracting embarrassing attention as DH and I tried to rein the kids in. Then just as I

emergency room

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I took J, my second youngest (age 3) to the emergency room Friday afternoon for 2 stitches in his forehead. He got a cut and some scrapes when he fell off a boogie board in the Jacuzzi and struck his head on the side bricks. :-( I could see that a small portion of the wound was deep and that stitches could help minimize his scarring so I dressed him as quickly as possible and we dashed to the hospital. My DD was visiting from college and she stayed home with older brother, age 4. I took baby A to the hospital, assuming correctly that there would be waiting involved and he would need to breastfeed. J was SO brave. The hospital staff wrapped him up in a blanket for the actual numbing of the forehead and stitches, but the little man was so well behaved he never flinched. He said, "ouch" once when he got the numbing shot and laid there talking to the staff the rest of the time. Afterwards they couldn't get over how good he was and he was showered with gifts and sticker

family

DD and I were talking the other day. I wanted to tell her about the movie I had just seen on Netflix, Becoming Jane. Ann Hathaway played Jane Austen, the famous 19th-century novelist. I enjoyed the movie, not so much because Ann Hathaway is such a great actress, but because I really LOVE Jane Austen and wanted to know more about her life. So I asked DD if she had ever read Jane Austen and she said, "no." NO???? NO????? WHAT????? You mean you never were assigned a Jane Austen novel in high school? No. I told her she absolutely HAD to read Pride and Prejudice. DD loved reading Oscar Wilde years ago. His plays are SO witty. I told her that Jane Austen's wit is just as funny and wonderful. She promises to read the book asap. She is coming over tonight. Maybe I can dig up the old copy I got from my mother, browned though the pages are and I think the binding is cracked, but OMGosh! She will love it, I know! DD mentioned at one point in the conversation that sh

baby pictures

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I got a couple of shots of him in the past few days. I am still not altogether sure about his hair color. He looks mostly blond, but when the sun shines on his hair at a certain angle, I see reddish highlights.

reverse osmosis link

I found a link that gives info on reverse osmosis systems. It has illustrations and understandable descriptions. reverse osmosis

Don dreenk de water

I was at the synagogue this evening talking to the wife of a guest speaker from Uganda. I asked her about water quality in her country, and she said that her village has a well in the center and everybody has to carry water from the well to the houses. The water quality is good in the summer, but when it rains the water tends to make people sick if it is not boiled. Then we got onto the subject of American water quality. We discussed the chemicals in water here, chiefly chlorine. I said that I had always been told that a goldfish dies if you place it directly into tap water. I remember my parents telling me that as a child. And I remember the deeply unsettling feeling I had at the time. Do you mean to tell me the water you have been giving me to drink my whole life can kill a GOLDFISH????!!!!! As soon as I got out on my own as an adult I began to purchased bottled water and later got a filtering system. It so happens I bought a new filter for our house at Costco last weekend.

Being Happy

I don't expect to be HAPPY-HAPPY all the time. In fact, I really don't expect a whole lot out of life. And I don't think I demand all that much. I don't need a huge house with a view. I am happy in a smallish apartment if I have enough room for my kids. I don't need constant good feelings in my heart. I understand that life is a balance between good times and bad and I expect to feel all those feelings, and the boredom in between. No problem. Imagine my surprise recently when I found myself experiencing more and more frequent happy times. I think perhaps it is from having the new lady here helping more often. I am less and less stressed out by the day-to-day grind. I have time to nurture the baby and energy left over for the other boys. When DH comes home from work, I have the time and patience to look him in the eye and *really want to know* how his day went. In fact, twice in the last week I have offered to bring him a cup of hot tea or cold water bec

Updates

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I took baby A to the pediatrician this morning for his 4 month checkup and vaccinations. They were out of the DPT shot so I will have to keep calling them and go back later this week for that when the shipment comes in. {eyeroll} What a pain. And baby A will have to go through 2 bouts of feeling yucky because my kids always feel badly after the DPT shot, and he already is feeling bad (I can tell) from this morning's shots. Poor baby. His weight was up to 13 pounds 14 ounces, which is what I thought it was. His length is 24.25 inches, so that puts him in the 25th percentile for height and weight. Pretty typical for my kids to weigh in like that at the 4 month checkup. He has been perfectly healthy and eating well lately and the doctor is pleased with him so all in all it was a perfect checkup. I also dropped by the post office and mailed off the last of the stuff for baby A's passport. So all 3 passports have been ordered and now we wait. I had to have a form notarized

Preparing to travel

I haven't had enough fun lately. And I'm going to do something about it. I just bought plane tickets to visit my mother for Memorial Day weekend. I know what you are thinking. Mother. Does that sound fun? Well in my case, yes it is. I will get to see her new house in Washington State. And I also made reservations for whitewater rafting. There is a place that will take us out for 3 hours (remember Gilligan's 3-hour tour?). And my mom will watch the baby while DD-19, DS-8 and I go bouncing/sliding down the Elwah River. And my mom is also going to take us to Victoria, British Columbia to see the sights. So I have been scrambling the past few days getting things together for passports for the little ones, as DD already has hers in place. And I'm ordering a new one for me too, as mine expires in July this year so I might as well. I had a hard time with the baby as I didn't have a notarized statement from DH about ordering the passport. And I went to 3 plac

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